Badawi calms priests over Islamic state

Badawi calms priests over Islamic state

Mark Bendeich, Reuters/Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia's Muslim prime minister broke new ground in national race relations on Tuesday, appearing for the first time at a Christian gathering to dismiss the notion that his country was governed as an Islamic state.

In an emotional speech, which followed a moving Christian prayer for his cancer-stricken wife, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wiped away tears in front of dozens of priests and nuns as he appealed for religious dialogue and moderation.

"As prime minister of Malaysia, I am not a leader of Muslims but a Muslim leader of all Malaysians," the former Islamic scholar told a conference of the World Council of Churches (WCC), an umbrella group of most Christian denominations.

"Therefore I have a responsibility not just to my fellow Muslims but also to Malaysians who profess other religions as well," he added, before finishing his speech with a call for religious unity, citing a passage from the Bible.

Abdullah took the leadership of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) last year and has tried to galvanize a group speaking for a fifth of humanity into more effective positions on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But at home, he runs a secular government ruling over a population where Muslims are a slim majority and the state religion is Islam. Almost half the population, with big ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, follow other faiths or beliefs.

At times, ethnic minorities and moderate Muslims alike chafe against Islamic injunctions, which recently included a ban on the use of mobile-phone text messaging for marketing competitions.

"I do not want to claim that there are no problems among the different ethnic and religious communities in Malaysia," he said.

"I do not want to claim that there are no latent tensions and frustrations. There are still very many things that we need to work on, but if the world ever needed a lesson in diversity and making it work, I am confident Malaysia can be a showcase."

With the aim of keeping some of these tensions under control, Malaysia's film censors recently decided to bar Muslims and other non-Christians from seeing The Passion of The Christ, Mel Gibson's graphic film about Christ's crucifixion.

The ruling that the film was only for Christian eyes upset the WCC. Its visiting general secretary, Kenyan Methodist minister Samuel Kobia, said anybody should be able to see it.

Asked about the screening restrictions, Abdullah said he had merely granted a request by Christian groups. "The approach made to us was to allow for the picture to be shown to specific audiences...I said we have no problem with that," he said.

The Passion of The Christ breaks Islamic taboos on flesh-and- blood portrayals of holy figures. It is being shown in parts of the Middle East, the heart of Islam, largely thanks to a Jewish outcry over the film. It is also screening in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, on general release.

Asked after his speech why he had shed a tear, the prime minister said his mind had turned to all the suffering in the world. But it was clear the prayer for his wife, led by a Malaysian bishop, had moved him before he rose to speak.

Abdullah's wife has been undergoing breast cancer treatment in the United States.